Caterpillar Soup

Summer has been cool, dark and watery

Summer has been cool, dark and watery and convalescence is a word I find myself returning to over and over. June and July were brimming with enormous spiders, watching me from my bedroom walls, crawling over me while I slept, and following me in cardboard boxes to a new home. I have listened to their message.

“Numerology equates spider with the symbol for infinity for its eight legs. Spider is the totality of the life cycle - the beginning and end. The medicine of spider should be called upon when one feels trapped. If a web is destroyed spider recycles it and weaves it anew. So, spider allows the individual to assimilate negative experiences and use them for gain. The lesson of the spider is maintaining balance - between past and future, male and female, physical and spiritual. She teaches you that everything you do and experience now is weaving what you will encounter in the future. Spider awakens creative sensibility. She reminds us that the world is woven around us; we are the centre of our own world. Remember: spiders are timid, delicate, agile and much of their creative energy is expended in the dark. But when the sun hits the fruits of spider labour they glisten with intricate beauty.”

For some time, I turned into caterpillar soup: Inside the chrysalis the caterpillars body turns to liquid form and is rebuilt as a butterfly. Contrary to popular belief, the cocoon is not a ‘resting’ stage, but several transformations are happening. The caterpillar's old body dies inside the chrysalis and the new one with wings appears.

I have spent more time than I would like sitting in hospital waiting rooms and doctors offices. I have a hole in my heart and this is not a metaphor, but it isn’t dangerous. I have medication and in the future there will be an operation. I measure my state of being by how many books I have read. I went a month without reading any but I’m reading every day again. The air is full of water and there are symbols in everything and all I wanted for years and years was to not be stuck. 

We don’t need sunshine for joy. Life is crawling with spiders. I’m hardening caterpillar soup.